The present invention relates to apparatus for shaping (which may be referred to as moulding) floor coverings for the interiors of vehicles, the apparatus comprising a plurality of operator-controlled presses for hot-shaping the floor coverings to impart thereto a three-dimensional shape.
In general, such apparatus is known, and suitable presses are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,635,629 and 3,078,516. The floor coverings are particularly, but not necessarily, for the front and/or rear of a motor car interior or for the cab of a lorry. The floor covering preferably has a textile top surface, such as a boucle or pile carpet, and a backing which is a layer of thermoplastic resin, the unshaped floor covering being deformable when heated. Normal practice is to take the unshaped floor covering, which would be a flat slab or sheet, heat the unshaped floor covering and then place the floor covering in a press. Normally, the press must be closed fairly slowly to enable the floor covering to be distorted into the proper shape, and the floor covering must be kept in the press until it has cooled down enough for further handling. In addition, it is normal to trim the edges of the floor covering while it is in the press and to make holes in the floor covering, for instance for gear and brake levers and for seat attachments, by passing hot tools of suitable cross-sectional shape through the floor covering, and, if necessary, by cutting the floor covering with cutting tools.
The floor covering must therefore be a relatively long time in the press, and it is normal practice to have a number of presses served by a single heater, and for instance there could be a single oven or furnace for heating the tools used to form the holes in the floor coverings. Nonetheless, the arrangement involves fairly long transportation distances between the heater and at least some of the presses and between the oven or furnace and at least some of the presses, and requires a relatively large amount of operator time.